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All Gone

Those were the words of finality that were expressed today at the loss of my daughter’s new pregnancy.

This would have been her and her husband’s third child. This would have been Babyman and Dr. Evil’s new sibling. This would have been my sixth grandbaby.

It won’t be though, because … well I don’t know why.

Miscarriage has been one of the things I feared the most when it comes to my girls having children. I have not personally faced the loss of a hoped for pregnancy. I was not sure how or if I’d be able to help or even know what to say. Yet when the time came, we just talked, we cried, and we even laughed, because that is what we do.

The reality is that miscarriage is hard. There aren’t good words for it. Sure we talked about how several decades back you would not have even known you were pregnant yet. We talked about how they could try again as soon as she wanted. The trouble is that in the days leading up to the loss, we had talked about how the boys would handle it and what the sex would be and possible names. We got attached…just that quick.

There are also the feelings. Joy, excitement, wonder, love, and anticipation, now followed by sadness, disappointment, questioning, despair, and helplessness. And those are just my feelings. My daughter’s feelings trump mine completely. She is handling the whole thing amazingly. For her, a little dark humor goes a long way, and today she allowed herself to really feel the feelings, ultimately breaking down and crying it out. After I got the picture, I did the same.

I am truly sorry for anyone who has suffered miscarriage, as well as for the loss of a child at any stage. As mothers these losses feel as if a piece of the soul is ripped away forever.

I’ll tell you a secret; as a believer in a good good Father and Heaven, in addition to being a believer that life begins at conception, I suspect Heaven to be a place in which these children eagerly await the arrival of their parents. (I will not get into a philosophical or religious conversation about who does or does not get to go to heaven. This post is not about that.) I believe God feels every bit of grief a mother (and father and other family members) feels at the loss of a child. He lost one, and knows firsthand how it felt. Honestly he feels it every time someone chooses to not accept his love, but that is also another post altogether.

If you’ve suffered loss, you aren’t alone. There are those who will grieve with you. Today when I told my daughter I broke down and cried, her response was “I am so glad I have you to grieve with me.”.

I melted.

In that moment I knew I had done the best I could to help her go through this thing, this horrible, horrible thing. I will keep doing the best I can and she (and I, and her husband and the boys) will get through.